Document History for DynamoDB

Node.js developers can leverage Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX), using the DAX client
for Node.js. For more information, see In-Memory Acceleration with DAX.

October 5, 2017

VPC Endpoints for DynamoDB

DynamoDB endpoints allow Amazon EC2 instances in your Amazon VPC to access DynamoDB,
without
exposure to the public Internet. Network traffic between your VPC and
DynamoDB does not leave the Amazon network. For more information, see Amazon VPC Endpoints for DynamoDB.

Amazon DynamoDB Accelerator (DAX) is a fully managed, highly available, in-memory
cache
for DynamoDB that delivers up to a 10x performance improvement – from
milliseconds to microseconds – even at millions of requests per second.
For more information, see In-Memory Acceleration with DAX.

Amazon DynamoDB Time-to-Live (TTL) enables you to automatically delete expired
items from your tables, at no additional cost. For more information, see Time To Live.

Feb 27, 2017

DynamoDB now supports Cost Allocation Tags

You can now add tags to your Amazon DynamoDB tables for improved usage categorization
and more granular cost reporting. For more information, see Tagging for DynamoDB.

Jan 19, 2017

New DynamoDB DescribeLimits API

The DescribeLimits API returns the current provisioned capacity limits for your
AWS account in a region, both for the region as a whole and for any one DynamoDB
table that you create there. It lets you determine what your current account-level
limits
are so that you can compare them to the provisioned capacity that you are currently
using,
and have plenty of time to apply for an increase before you hit a limit. For
more
information, see Limits in DynamoDB and the
DescribeLimits in the
Amazon DynamoDB API Reference.

March 1, 2016

DynamoDB Console Update and New Terminology for Primary Key Attributes

The DynamoDB management console has been redesigned to be more intuitive
and easy to use. As part of this update, we are introducing new terminology
for primary key attributes:

Partition Key—also known as a hash
attribute.

Sort Key—also known as a range
attribute.

Only the names have changed; the functionality remains the same.

When you create a table or a secondary index, you can choose either a simple primary
key
(partition key only), or a composite primary key (partition key and sort
key). The DynamoDB documentation has been updated to reflect these
changes.

November 12, 2015

Amazon DynamoDB Storage Backend for Titan

The DynamoDB Storage Backend for Titan is a storage backend for the
Titan graph database implemented on top of Amazon DynamoDB. When using the
DynamoDB Storage Backend for Titan, your data benefits from the protection
of DynamoDB, which runs across Amazon’s high-availability data centers. The
plugin is available for Titan version 0.4.4 (primarily for compatibility
with existing applications) and Titan version 0.5.4 (recommended for new
applications). Like other storage backends for Titan, this plugin
supports the Tinkerpop stack (versions 2.4 and 2.5), including the
Blueprints API and the Gremlin shell. For more information, see Amazon DynamoDB Storage Backend for Titan.

DynamoDB Streams captures a time-ordered sequence of item-level modifications in
any DynamoDB table, and stores this information in a log for up to 24 hours.
Applications can access this log and view the data items as they appeared
before and after they were modified, in near real time. For more
information, see Capturing Table Activity with DynamoDB Streams and the
DynamoDB Streams API
Reference.

DynamoDB cross-region replication is a client-side
solution for maintaining identical copies of DynamoDB tables across
different AWS regions, in near real time. You can use cross region
replication to back up DynamoDB tables, or to provide low-latency access to
data where users are geographically distributed. For more information,
see Cross-Region Replication.

The DynamoDB
Scan operation uses eventually consistent reads, by
default. You can use strongly consistent reads instead by setting the
ConsistentRead parameter to true. For more information,
see Read Consistency for Scan and Scan in the
Amazon DynamoDB API Reference.

This release adds a new KeyConditionExpression
parameter to the Query API. A
Query reads items from a table or an index using
primary key values. The KeyConditionExpression
parameter is a string that identifies primary key names, and conditions to
be applied to the key values; the Query retrieves only
those items that satisfy the expression. The syntax of
KeyConditionExpression is similar to that of
other expression parameters in DynamoDB, and allows you to define substitution
variables for names and values within the expression. For more information,
see Working with Queries.

April 27, 2015

New comparison functions for conditional writes

In DynamoDB, the ConditionExpression parameter
determines whether a PutItem,
UpdateItem, or DeleteItem
succeeds: The item is written only if the condition evaluates to true. This
release adds two new functions, attribute_type and
size, for use withConditionExpression.
These functions allow you to perform a conditional writes based on the data
type or size of an attribute in a table. For more information, see Condition Expressions.

April 27, 2015

Scan API for secondary indexes

In DynamoDB, a Scan operation reads all of the items in
a table, applies user-defined filtering criteria, and returns the selected
data items to the application. This same capability is now available for
secondary indexes too. To scan a local secondary index or a global secondary
index, you specify the index name and the name of its parent table. By
default, an index Scan returns all of the data in the
index; you can use a filter expression to narrow the results that are
returned to the application. For more information, see Working with Scans.

February 10, 2015

Online operations for global secondary indexes

Online indexing lets you add or remove global secondary indexes on
existing tables. With online indexing, you do not need to define all of a
table's indexes when you create a table; instead, you can add a new index at
any time. Similarly, if you decide you no longer need an index, you can
remove it at any time. Online indexing operations are non-blocking, so that
the table remains available for read and write activity while indexes are
being added or removed. For more information, see Managing Global Secondary Indexes.

January 27, 2015

Document model support with JSON

DynamoDB allows you to store and retrieve documents with full support for
document models. New data types are fully compatible with the JSON standard
and allow you to nest document elements within one another. You can use
document path dereference operators to read and write individual elements,
without having to retrieve the entire document. This release also introduces
new expression parameters for specifying projections, conditions and update
actions when reading or writing data items. To learn more about document
model support with JSON, see Data Types and Using Expressions in DynamoDB.

October 7, 2014

Flexible scaling

For tables and global secondary indexes, you can increase provisioned
read and write throughput capacity by any amount, provided that you stay
within your per-table and per-account limits. For more information,
see Limits in DynamoDB.

October 7, 2014

Larger item sizes

The maximum item size in DynamoDB has increased from 64 KB to 400 KB. For
more information, see Limits in DynamoDB.

October 7, 2014

Improved conditional expressions

DynamoDB expands the operators that are available for conditional
expressions, giving you additional flexibility for conditional puts,
updates, and deletes. The newly available operators let you check whether an
attribute does or does not exist, is greater than or less than a particular
value, is between two values, begins with certain characters, and much more.
DynamoDB also provides an optional OR
operator for evaluating multiple conditions. By default, multiple conditions
in an expression are ANDed together, so
the expression is true only if all of its conditions are true. If you
specify OR instead, the expression is
true if one or more one conditions are true. For more information, see Working with Items in DynamoDB.

April 24, 2014

Query filter

The DynamoDB Query API supports a new
QueryFilter option. By default, a
Query finds items that match a specific partition key
value and an optional sort key condition. A Query
filter applies conditional expressions to other, non-key attributes; if a
Query filter is present, then items that do not
match the filter conditions are discarded before the
Query results are returned to the application. For
more information, see Working with Queries.

April 24, 2014

Data export and import using the AWS Management Console

The DynamoDB console has been enhanced to simplify exports and imports of
data in DynamoDB tables. With just a few clicks, you can set up an AWS Data
Pipeline to orchestrate the workflow, and an Amazon Elastic MapReduce
cluster to copy data from DynamoDB tables to an Amazon S3 bucket, or
vice-versa. You can perform an export or import one time only, or set up a
daily export job. You can even perform cross-region exports and imports,
copying DynamoDB data from a table in one AWS region to a table in another AWS
region. For more information, see Exporting and Importing DynamoDB Data Using AWS Data Pipeline.

DynamoDB adds support for global secondary indexes. As with a local
secondary index, you define a global secondary index by using an alternate
key from a table and then issuing Query requests on the index. Unlike a
local secondary index, the partition key for the global secondary index does
not
have to be the same as that of the table; it can be any scalar attribute
from the table. The sort key is optional and can also be any scalar table
attribute. A global secondary index also has its own provisioned throughput
settings, which are separate from those of the parent table. For more
information, see Improving Data Access with Secondary Indexes and Global Secondary Indexes.

December 12, 2013

Fine-grained access control

DynamoDB adds support for fine-grained access control. This feature allows
customers to specify which principals (users, groups, or roles) can access
individual items and attributes in a DynamoDB table or secondary index.
Applications can also leverage web identity federation to offload the task
of user authentication to a third-party identity provider, such as Facebook,
Google, or Login with Amazon. In this way, applications (including mobile
apps) can handle very large numbers of users, while ensuring that no one can
access DynamoDB data items unless they are authorized to do so. For more
information, see Using IAM Policy Conditions for Fine-Grained Access
Control.

October 29, 2013

4 KB read capacity unit size

The capacity unit size for reads has increased from 1 KB to 4 KB. This
enhancement can reduce the number of provisioned read capacity units
required for many applications. For example, prior to this release, reading
a 10 KB item would consume 10 read capacity units; now that same 10 KB read
would consume only 3 units (10 KB / 4 KB, rounded up to the next 4 KB
boundary). For more information, see Throughput Capacity for Reads and
Writes.

May 14, 2013

Parallel scans

DynamoDB adds support for parallel Scan operations. Applications can now
divide a table into logical segments and scan all of the segments
simultaneously. This feature reduces the time required for a Scan to
complete, and fully utilizes a table's provisioned read capacity. For more
information, see Working with Scans.

May 14, 2013

Local secondary indexes

DynamoDB adds support for local secondary indexes. You can define sort key
indexes on non-key attributes, and then use these indexes in Query requests.
With local secondary indexes, applications can efficiently retrieve data
items across multiple dimensions. For more information, see Local Secondary Indexes.

April 18, 2013

New API version

With this release, DynamoDB introduces a new API version (2012-08-10). The
previous API version (2011-12-05) is still supported for backward
compatibility with existing applications. New applications should use the
new API version 2012-08-10. We recommend that you migrate your existing
applications to API version 2012-08-10, since new DynamoDB features (such as
local secondary indexes) will not be backported to the previous API version.
For more information on API version 2012-08-10, see the
Amazon DynamoDB API Reference.

April 18, 2013

IAM policy variable support

The IAM access policy language now supports variables. When a policy
is evaluated, any policy variables are replaced with values that are
supplied by context-based information from the authenticated user's
session. You can use policy variables to define general purpose policies
without explicitly listing all the components of the policy. For more
information about policy variables, go to Policy Variables
in the AWS Identity and Access Management Using
IAM guide.

Version 2 of the AWS SDK for PHP is now available. The PHP code samples
in the Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide have been updated to use this new SDK.
For more
information on Version 2 of the SDK, see AWS SDK for PHP.

January 23, 2013

New endpoint

DynamoDB expands to the AWS GovCloud (US) region. For the current list of
service endpoints and protocols, see Regions
and Endpoints.

December 3, 2012

New endpoint

DynamoDB expands to the South America (São Paulo) region. For the current list of
supported endpoints, see Regions and
Endpoints.

December 3, 2012

New endpoint

DynamoDB expands to the Asia Pacific (Sydney) region. For the current list
of supported endpoints, see Regions and
Endpoints.

DynamoDB calculates a CRC32 checksum of the HTTP payload and
returns this checksum in a new header, x-amz-crc32.
For more information, see DynamoDB Low-Level API.

By default, read operations performed by the
BatchGetItem API are eventually
consistent. A new ConsistentRead parameter in
BatchGetItem lets you choose strong
read consistency instead, for any table(s) in the request. For
more information, see Description.

This release removes some restrictions when updating many
tables simultaneously. The total number of tables that can be
updated at once is still 10; however, these tables can now be
any combination of CREATING, UPDATING
or DELETING status. Additionally, there is no
longer any minimum amount for increasing or reducing the
ReadCapacityUnits or
WriteCapacityUnits for a table. For
more information, see Limits in DynamoDB.

November 2, 2012

Best practices documentation

The Amazon DynamoDB Developer Guide identifies best practices for working with tables
and items, along with recommendations for query and scan
operations.

September 28, 2012

Support for binary data type

In addition to the Number and String types, DynamoDB now supports Binary
data type.

Prior to this release, to store binary data, you converted your binary
data into string format and stored it in DynamoDB. In addition to the
required conversion work on the client-side, the conversion often
increased the size of the data item requiring more storage and
potentially additional provisioned throughput capacity.

With the binary type attributes you can now store any binary data, for
example compressed data, encrypted data, and images. For more
information see Data Types. For working examples of
handling binary type data using the AWS SDKs, see the following
sections:

For the added binary data type support in the AWS SDKs, you will need
to download the latest SDKs and you might also need to update any
existing applications. For information about downloading the AWS SDKs,
see .NET Code
Samples.

August 21, 2012

DynamoDB table items can be updated and copied using the DynamoDB
console

DynamoDB users can now update and copy table items using the DynamoDB
Console, in addition to being able to add and delete items. This new
functionality simplifies making changes to individual items through the
Console.

DynamoDB now supports Signature Version 4 for authenticating requests.

July 5, 2012

Table explorer support in DynamoDB Console

The DynamoDB Console now supports a table explorer that enables you to
browse and query the data in your tables. You can also insert new items
or delete existing items. The Creating Tables and Loading Sample Data and Using the Console sections
have been updated for these features.

May 22, 2012

New endpoints

DynamoDB availability expands with new endpoints in the
US West (N. California) region, US West (Oregon) region, and the
Asia Pacific (Singapore) region.

DynamoDB now supports a batch write API that enables you to put and
delete several items from one or more tables in a single API call. For
more information about the DynamoDB batch write API, see BatchWriteItem.

DynamoDB expands to the Asia Pacific (Tokyo) region. For the
current list of supported endpoints, see Regions and Endpoints.

February 29, 2012

ReturnedItemCount metric added

A new metric, ReturnedItemCount, provides the number
of items returned in the response of a Query or Scan operation for DynamoDB
is available for monitoring through CloudWatch. For more information, see
Monitoring DynamoDB.